Why is ADHD often misdiagnosed?
Many symptoms of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) are not what you might expect. In this video, psychiatrist Sudeepta Varma, MD, discusses symptoms of ADHD that are common but often unrecognized.
Transcript
When we think of ADHD, which is attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, we normally think of more of the hyperactivity side of it.
So you think of like a little boy in a classroom being disruptive, bouncing off the walls. And actually, that's not the case, because there's a big component of it
that has to do with attention difficulties. [MUSIC PLAYING]
ADHD is often misdiagnosed particularly in adults and also, I would say, in women, because we have a stereotype
of what we're expecting. When we think of ADHD, which is attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, we normally think of more the hyperactivity side
of it. So you think of a little boy in a classroom being disruptive, bouncing off the walls. And actually, that's not the case,
because there's a big component of it that has to do with attention difficulties. So you might have a more quiet person who's a daydreamer, who's just looking out the window, or bored,
or checked out, or has lost interest, and they're not causing the same kind of disruption. Also, a lot of times people just chalk it up
to personality issues. They would say, oh, I've always been frazzled, or I'm a little spacey, or I'm disorganized. But they don't realize that if you're over and over again
feeling overwhelmed by basic tasks, that when you compare yourself to your peers you find that it takes you twice as long to get anything done,
or that you really haven't reached your full potential in life. So you want to put all these things together and say,
well, maybe this is part of a bigger syndrome that I can actually do something about.
mental health behavior
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